For years, school choice has been expanding nationally. There’s good reason for this steady growth: parents, especially low-income parents, want to decide where to send their kids to school. And the bulk of the evidence shows that school choice — charters, tax credits, vouchers and homeschooling — leads to significant positive educational benefits.
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An article in the New York Times Magazine gave a view of the state of charter schools in Michigan that is contradicted by the official record. The 7,000-plus word article on Sept. 5 was titled “Michigan Gambled on Charter Schools. Its Children Lost.” A key point in the story is that charter schools in Michigan are allowed to fail children year after year.
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The New York Times Magazine article repeated a myth that districts serving poor communities are not funded as well as those in more affluent ones. The author, Mark Binelli, didn’t appear to completely grasp how complex school funding is in Michigan.
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In October 2016, the New York Times editorial board called out the NAACP for demanding a moratorium on public charter schools.The newspaper’s editorial board based this on what it called “sound research” showing that “charter schools give families a desperately needed alternative to inadequate traditional schools in poor urban neighborhoods.”
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The New York Times Magazine published a 7,000-word story on Sept. 5 that attacked Michigan’s charter schools. Among the themes it promoted was one popular among charter school opponents, that charters are all about the money because their boards hire for-profit education management companies to operate their schools.
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